A realistic, and to a great extent, a philosophic study of modern American life: the scene is Chicago, and the writer gives searching views of society there. The hero is a doctor, and the organization of medical practitioners is well brought out. Having saved the life of a drunkard by an operation that injures the brain, he falls in love with the man's wife, and the situation thus produced is a specimen of the problems raised. The story of the woman's futile effort to realize her character in this chaos of repressing forces, and her suicide, is tragic, but it is not unwholesome. "It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought out."--Buffalo Express.

peless mass, thinly disguised under a white sheet that had
fallen from his arms and head. She got up and walked out of the room. She
was not wanted there: the hospital had turned its momentary swift attention
to another case. As she passed the stretcher, the bearers shifted their
burden to give her room. The form on the stretcher moaned indistinctly.

She looked at the unsightly mass, in her heart envious of his condition.
There were things in this world much more evil than this bruised flesh of
what had once been a human being.

CHAPTER II

The next morning Dr. Sommers took his successor through, the surgical ward.
Dr. Raymond, whose place he had been holding for a month, was a young,
carefully dressed man, fresh from a famous eastern hospital. The nurses
eyed him favorably. He was absolutely correct. When the surgeons reached
the bed marked 8, Dr. Sommers paused. It was the case he had operated on
the night before. He glanced inquiringly at the metal tablet wh